Imprisoned former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, once Russia’s richest man, has been sentenced to six more years in jail for fraud.

With his current sentence due to expire next year, Khodorkovsky, 47, now faces imprisonment until 2017.

He could “only be reformed by being isolated from society”, the judge’s verdict said.

Khodorkovsky was convicted on Monday in a judgment criticised by the US and others as selective justice.

Once seen as a threat to former President Vladimir Putin, he was found guilty along with former business partner Platon Lebedev of stealing billions of dollars from their own oil firm, Yukos, and laundering the proceeds.

via BBC News – Khodorkovsky gets six more years in Russia jail.

Indianapolis (CNN) — Ten years ago, days before Christmas, President Bill Clinton changed my life forever. I was in federal prison, serving the seventh year of a 24-year sentence for a first-time nonviolent crack cocaine offense.

Clinton’s mercy and acknowledgement that my sentence was unjust led him to grant me a commutation. Had he not done so, I would be in prison until 2016. On December 22, the anniversary of my release, I will join others in a fast for justice to honor those in prison who deserve the same relief from their long sentences for low-level drug offenses.

Many things have changed in the last decade. I graduated from college, attended law school, got married, raised my son who was born while I was incarcerated and gave birth to a daughter. I also established my own foundation to give hope to children of incarcerated parents.

via My life saved by reprieve of 24-year sentence for crack – CNN.com.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/10/05/new.york.terror.plot/index.html?hpt=T1

Times Square bomb plotter sentenced to life in prison

New York (CNN) — A 30-year-old Pakistani-American was sentenced to life in prison Tuesday for attempting to detonate a vehicle bomb in Times Square this year.

Faisal Shahzad was defiant before a judge sentenced him Tuesday, saying “the defeat of the U.S. is imminent.”

Shahzad pleaded guilty in June to all 10 counts in an indictment against him. At the time, he told the court, “I want to plead guilty 100 times because unless the United States pulls out of Afghanistan and Iraq, until they stop drone strikes in Somalia, Pakistan and Yemen and stop attacking Muslim lands, we will attack the United States and be out to get them.”

Charges against Shahzad included attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction, conspiracy and attempt to commit international terrorism, among others, authorities have said.

Shahzad is accused of attempting to set off a vehicle bomb in Times Square on May 1, according to documents filed in federal court Wednesday.

Prosecutors said Shahzad carefully selected his location as a highly populated target and intended to strike again if he wasn’t caught the first time.

The bomb failed to detonate and he was arrested two days later while trying to leave the country on a flight from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport bound for Pakistan.

In a sentencing memo submitted to a federal court Wednesday, prosecutors painted a picture of a young man determined to target Americans on a large scale.

According to the memo, Shahzad used webcams accessible on the internet “as part of his effort to maximize the deadly effect of his bomb.”

The memo says Shahzad found webcams online and studied the real-time video feeds of different areas in Times Square to determine when and where he could inflict the most damage.

Prosecutors said Shahzad “wanted to select the busiest time for pedestrian traffic in Times Square because pedestrians walking on the streets would be easier to kill and to injure than people driving in cars.”

Federal prosecutors also contended in the sentencing memo that Shahzad believed the bomb would kill about 40 people and that he “was prepared to conduct additional attacks until he was captured or killed.”

According to the document, at the time of his arrest, Shahzad waived his Miranda rights and stated that “if he had not been arrested he planned to detonate a second bomb in New York City two weeks later.”

At a June court appearance, Shahzad admitted to receiving five days of weapons training in Waziristan, in Pakistan.

Prosecutors said Shahzad spent 40 days beginning in December 2009 in the tribal region that straddles Pakistan and Afghanistan, where he lived with members of the Pakistani Taliban, or TTP.

According to the court documents, he worked with an experienced bomb trainer affiliated with the TTP for five days. In addition, Shahzad was given $5,000 to help fund the mission and agreed to appear in a TTP video glorifying the planned attack.

The roughly 40-minute video, according to its description in the memo, features Shahzad quoting from the Quran while the other side of the screen is filled with images of Times Square after the botched bombing.

Toward the end of the video, the memo quotes Shahzad as saying, “I have been trying to join my brothers in jihad every day since 9/11 happened. I am planning to wage an attack inside America.”